The Atlas, which was compiled
at the request of the African Ministers' Council on Water, was prepared
by UNEP in collaboration with the African Union (AU), the European Union
(EU), the US Department of State and the US Geological Survey. The
publication features over 224 maps and 104 satellite images, as well as
500 graphics and hundreds of photos from 53 countries, showing the
challenges facing Africa’s water supplies. [The
Atlas]

Technical Guidelines for Responsible Fisheries
on the Ecosystem Approach to Aquaculture

(FAO
Fisheries and Aquaculture Department; November 2010)

These
technical guidelines on the ecosystem approach to aquaculture (EEA) were
developed to support mainly Articles 9 and 10 of the FAO Code of Conduct
for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF). Their
main objective is to assist countries, institutions and policy makers in
the development and implementation of a strategy to ensure the
sustainability of the aquaculture sector, integration of aquaculture
with other sectors and its contribution to social and economic
development. [The
guidelines]

FAO
E-Conference on Learning from the Past – Summary Document

(FAO, November 2010)

This summary document
of the FAO e-mail conference entitled “Learning from the past: Successes
and failures with agricultural biotechnologies in developing countries
over the last 20 years” provides a summary of the main issues discussed
during a moderated e-mail conference, hosted by the FAO Biotechnology
Forum from 8 June-8 July 2009, based on the messages posted by the
participants, 74% of which came from people in developing countries.
Participants in the e-mail conference shared experiences regarding the
use of agricultural biotechnologies across the different food and
agricultural sectors in developing countries, and provided concrete
examples where agricultural biotechnologies were benefiting
smallholders. They also discussed several cases where specific
applications of agricultural biotechnologies had not succeeded, and
offered suggestions to increase their success in the future. [The
summary document]

The report by the United Nations and World Bank, stresses the need for
prevention to reduce countries' vulnerability to natural hazards in
order to enable their sustainable and cost-effective development. It
outlines a number of measures to prevent death and destruction from
natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding and
estimates annual global losses from natural disasters could triple to
US$185 billion by the end of this century, without calculating the
impact of climate change. One area in which the report calls for more
spending is early warning systems, particularly weather forecasting. It
also urges governments to ensure that new infrastructure does not
introduce new risk, including by locating infrastructure out of harm’s
way. [The
report]

Marine Biodiversity Assessment and Outlook: Global Synthesis

(UN Environment
Programme (UNEP) Regional Seas, October 2010)

This publication
provides the first systematic overview at a sub-global scale of the
state of knowledge of marine biodiversity, the pressures it currently
faces and the management frameworks in place for addressing those
pressures. It highlights that marine biodiversity
faces increasing pressures in all regions from land sourced pollution,
ship sourced pollution and impacts of fishing. The report further shows
that these pressures are serious and generally increasing despite
measures in place to address them, and that they are amplified by
predicted impacts of ocean warming, acidification and habitat change
arising from climate and atmospheric change. The report warns that,
without significant management intervention, marine biological diversity
is likely to deteriorate substantially in the next 20 years, with
growing consequences for resources and physical security of coastal
nations. [Report
website]

Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature: A
synthesis of the approach, conclusions and recommendations of TEEB

(The Economics of
Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), October 2010)

Compiling and
summarizing two years of work carried out by over 500 researchers, the
TEEB synthesis report calls for wider recognition of nature's
contribution to human livelihoods, health, security, and culture by
decision makers. It documents the multi-trillion dollar annual
contribution of the natural world to the global economy, and formulates
recommendations for policies and mechanisms that can help better account
for, and protect, this contribution. The report approaches the challenge
of bringing biodiversity to the political fore by focusing on making
nature’s values visible, and approaches this in three steps: recognizing
ecosystems’ value so as to understand what is at stake; demonstrating
natural value in economic terms to support decision making; and
capturing value by introducing mechanisms to incorporate this value into
decision making at all political and non-political levels. [The
report]

Blue Harvest: Inland Fisheries as an Ecosystem Service

(UNEP and World Fish
Centre, October 2010)

This report aims to
help inform future approaches to conservation and management of
freshwater ecosystems by reviewing the importance of inland fisheries as
an ecosystem service, the pressures upon them, and management approaches
to sustain them. The report identifies the various drivers of change in
inland fisheries, including climate change. In particular, it spotlights
changes in runoff patterns from increases in temperature and changes in
rain fall, leading to changes in flow regimes, as well as in breeding
and feeding habitats.

The report recommends five investments: improving understanding of
inland fisheries’ vulnerability to environmental change; developing
viable options for addressing the threats posed to inland fisheries by
environmental change; building adaptive capacity among key stakeholder
groups to increase resilience of inland fisheries at local, national and
regional scales; improving governance of inland fisheries and their
ecosystems; and developing capacity to sustain and enhance social
benefits from these resources. [The
report]

The Greening of Water Law: Managing Freshwater
Resources for People and the

Environment

(UNEP, September 2010) This UN Environment Programme (UNEP) publication
explores the notion and the benefits of greening water law by presenting
and assessing a variety of legal, procedural and policy mechanisms, for
both national and international arenas, that can help to elevate the
status and importance of environmental concerns in relation to other
societal interests and harmonize the water needs of both people and the
natural environment. It recommends that governments
take environmental issues into
consideration when drafting laws on the use of water to avert an
impending water crisis. [The
paper]

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)
for Local and Regional Policy Makers

(UNEP/TEEB,
September 2010) Planned as a useful advisory tool for local and regional
policy makers, administrators and managers, this report explores and
gives practical guidance on how to deal with the challenge of
biodiversity loss at the local and regional level. The report calls on
local policy makers to understand the value of natural capital and the
services it provides and apply a focus on nature’s benefits in local
policy areas such as urban management, spatial planning and protected
areas management. It calls for local authorities to take a stepwise
approach to assessing options that factor nature’s benefits into local
policy action, including: assessing ecosystem services and expected
changes in their availability and distribution; identifying which
ecosystem services are most relevant to particular policy issues; and
assessing impacts of policy options on different groups in the
community. [The
report] [UNEP
press release]

Global Trends in
Sustainable Energy Investment 2010

(UNEP, July 2010)

This UNEP report focuses on global trends
in sustainable energy investment, covering the renewable energy and
energy efficiency sectors. It was released along with REN21's Renewables
2010 Global Status Report. The REN21 report provides a broad look at the
status of renewable energy worldwide, covering power regeneration,
heating and cooling and transport fuels. It describes the landscape of
policies and targets introduced around the world to promote renewable
energy. The reports show that countries with policies encouraging
renewable energy have approximately doubled from 55, in 2005, to more
than 100 today, with half of them in the developing world. [UNEP
press release] [IEA
press release] [Reports
web site]

ACPs MEAs Newsletter

(UNEP, June 2010)

UNEP and the European Commission have
released a newsletter on the

Multilateral Environment
Agreements (MEAs) in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries (ACP
MEAs) Project. The newsletter contains an article by the UN Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO) describing the FAO’s efforts to
strengthen capacities of participating ACP country stakeholders to
dispose of obsolete stocks, and to prevent accumulation of further
stocks. It also contains information on upcoming activities in the
African, Caribbean and Pacific project hubs [The
newsletter].

Tourism and the Millennium Development Goals:
Sustainable, Competitive, Responsible

(UNWTO, June 2010)

This report, published by the UN World
Tourism Organization, indicates the UNWTO is firmly committed to
fostering the tourism sector’s contribution to development. Tourism
accounts for 45% of the exports of services of least developed countries
and is a major job generator for many of the world’s most vulnerable
populations. The report notes that, in 2009, emerging economies received
410 million international tourism arrivals, a 47% share of the global
total, and US$306 billion in international tourism receipts, 36% of the
global total. The report argues that the tourism industry can play a
significant role in the achievement of the MDGs, in particular
eradication of poverty, gender equality, environmental sustainability,
and global partnerships for development. [The
report]

AGRICULTURE OUTLOOK 2010-2019

(Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO),
June 2010)

This sixth
issue of
Agriculture Outlook projects the global markets of key agricultural
commodities in order to build consensus on how global agriculture may
evolve in the coming decade and the key issues impacting its course. The
report highlights an improved macroeconomic environment for commodity
projections from 2009, with growth expected to be stronger and faster in
large developing countries than in developed countries. It notes that
global agricultural production is anticipated to grow more slowly in the
coming decade than in the previous decade, and that production growth in
the least developed countries is struggling to keep up with population
growth. It describes the need for governments to create policies that
increase confidence in access to food and notes the potential volatility
created by uncoordinated policy actions among governments
internationally.
Agriculture Outlook 2010-2019 web site.

TRANSLATING ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND GOVERNANCE FACTORS INTO
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS VALUE: KEY INSIGHTS FOR COMPANIES AND INVESTORS

(World Business Council for
Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and UNEP Finance Initiative (UNEP FI),
March 2010)

This
report is based on a series of UNEP FI-WBCSD workshops held in 2008 and
2009. These workshops provided a platform for companies and investors to
collectively address barriers within capital market valuation processes
that inhibit the proper disclosure and assessment of corporate
environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance—underpinning the
materiality of ESG factors to long-term, sustainable business value and
to the performance of investment portfolios. The
resource.

METAL
STOCKS IN SOCIETY: SCIENTIFIC SYNTHESIS

(UNEP, 2010)

This
report, by the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management,
hosted by UNEP, focuses on the stocks of metals in society and the
recycling rates. It provides information on the quantity of metal stocks
in the world. The
resource.

FISHSTAT PLUS

(FAO, March 2010)

This universal software for fishery statistical time-series of the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been updated with the most
recent global production statistics. Users can consult individual
datasets on Global Fishery Production, Capture and Aquaculture
Production from 1950 to 2008.
FishStatPlus and
Online query panel.

SICK WATER

(UNEP Grid Arendal, March 2010)

This e-book of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
Grid Arendal identifies the transformation of wastewater from a major
health and environmental hazard into a clean, safe and
economically-attractive resource as a key challenge in the 21st century.
The
e-book.

ENVIRONMENT OUTLOOK FOR
THE ARAB REGION: ENVIRONMENT FOR DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN WELL-BEING

(UNEP, 2010)

This UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report outlines
the multiple challenges facing the Arab region, from climate change and
food insecurity to decreasing water availability and unemployment. It
provides a comprehensive and integrated assessment of the state of
environment in the region, and was compiled at the request of the
Council of Arab Ministers Responsible for the Environment (CAMRE). The
report emphasizes that: the region is one of the most water-scarce in
the world; biofuels and food security are among a suite of emerging and
intertwined challenges facing the region; and the region is predicted to
be among the hardest hit by the potential of direct and indirect climate
change impacts.
Report website.

SUBMARINE CABLES AND THE OCEANS: CONNECTING THE WORLD

(UNEP-WCMC Biodiversity
Series No. 31, January 2010)

Published
by UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC)
and the International Cable Protection Committee Ltd, this report
provides a factual description of the submarine cable industry and the
interaction of submarine telecommunications (which route 95% of all
international communications traffic) with the marine environment. It
seeks to focus and guide deliberations and decision making on the wise
conservation and protection of the oceans in concert with their
sustainable management and use. The
report.

COMMERCIAL PRESSURES ON LAND BLOG

(ILC, 2010)

This blog is
part of a wider global initiative on Commercial Pressures on Land led by
the International Land Coalition (ILC). The blog highlights press
reports, research papers, case studies and other information about
ï¿½commercial pressures on land.ï¿½ The
blog.

REDUCING EMISSIONS FROM PRIVATE CARS: INCENTIVE
MEASURES FOR BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE
(UNEP, 2009)
This publication includes a summary of experiences in reducing car use
and emissions reduction and is intended for policy-makers, automobile
manufacturers, fuel industry executives and city officials. It includes
sections on: increase in private car use: increase in private car use as
a policy failure; lessons from global experiences in reducing emissions
from private cars; and suggested ingredients in policy designing for
motivating changes. The
resource.

CATALYSING CHANGE: THE UNECE RESPONSE TO THE CLIMATE COUNTDOWN

(UNECE,
December 2009)

This report, by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), presents
major current and projected climate changes in the UNECE region, which
spans North America, Europe, Caucasus, Central Asia, and Israel. The
changes include increased or decreased precipitation, forest fires,
changes in ecosystems, sea-level rise, malaria risks and impacts on
agriculture. The report.

The report looks
into the impacts that climate change is having on Moldovaï¿½s environment,
society and economy. According to the report, developing countries are
more vulnerable to these impacts, have fewer resources with which to
adapt and to recover losses caused by extreme weather events and are
in general more dependent upon the environment for their
citizensï¿½ livelihoods. As a result, climate change poses a serious
threat to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to which
Moldova has committed. The
report.

If you
would like to submit details of
recently published documents and online resources,
send a message toDiego Noguera, IISD